


Shame

by indefensibleselfindulgence



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Blood Magic, M/M, Pain, Post Episode 44, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 12:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16892466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefensibleselfindulgence/pseuds/indefensibleselfindulgence
Summary: “Fjord.” He says slowly while he walks over, twisting the knife in his hand with more practice then Fjord thought a wizard should have. “You promised me, remember?”





	Shame

**Author's Note:**

> can't wait till caleb actually asks fjord to die for him in like 30 episodes 
> 
> not beta'd

The man's grin is feral while he rants over his books and spins with excitement.   
  
The room is practically alight with magic, Fjord can feel it in the air, tugging at his clothes and running through his hair. He doesn't know if it's Caleb already casting something or if its just the energy pouring off of the man.   
  
There's a war a few miles away, and the rest of their small family is in their rooms, but Caleb learned something new, something exciting and important, something he needed Fjord for.   
  
“Get it?” Caleb asks, and Fjord realizes somewhat too late that he didn't listen to a word out of Caleb's mouth, too busy staring at his mouth, and the redness on his cheeks, at the way his dirty boots twist with every new point.   
  
“Yeah, Yes. Yes.”   
  
“Wunderbar!” Caleb beams at him. “My room then, ja? Nott is with Jester and Beau.”   
  
“Sure.”   
  
Fjord's spent more time with him after they get back to the mainland, and maybe that's why he's so punch drunk and maybe in love with him. Maybe. What does it matter, really?   
  
“Come in.” Caleb holds the door open, and Fjord's arm brushes Caleb's chest as he walks by. He feels tingles up his arm, little zaps of magic. “Ah- Sorry. Armor.”   
  
“Okay sure.” Fjord looks around the room, and it's almost identical to his and Clay's. Almost. “Hey, uh, Caleb?”   
  
“Ja?”   
  
“What's the uh- what's that for?” He points at the sigil already dug into the wood.   
  
“The spell? You were paying attention, right, Fjord?”   
  
“Of course I was.”   
  
He's ready to go along with whatever Caleb wants, and considering they're doing it in a bedroom maybe it's going to be a little raunchy, and maybe Fjord is into a little raunchy right now.   
  
And then Caleb pulls the knife out.   
  
There must be some sort of hesitation on his face, probably his eyes bulging out like always, that makes Caleb click his tongue in what might be irritation, and that's not Great.   
  
“Fjord.” He says slowly while he walks over, twisting the knife in his hand with more practice then Fjord thought a wizard should have. “You promised me, remember?”   
  
And he did. And he does. Miles under the water, in a cave over an altar.   
  
Caleb bled for him.   
  
They shook on it.   
  
“Just- You'll be careful right?”   
  
“When am I ever anything else? And don't worry. I'm very good with anatomy.” There's heat in Fjord's face, even if Caleb didn't mean for it to be filthy. Did he wink? He might have winked. Fjord was too busy staring at his mouth again.   
  
“Caleb-”   
  
“I'll take how much I need.”   
  
So Fjord holds his hand out, and Caleb drags the blade across his palm.   
  
He wakes up in his own bed a few seconds- no a few hours later, obviously, because the sun is out and Clay isn't there.   
  
He feels like shit.   
  
He doesn't remember what the spell did- if it even worked- was Caleb okay? Who the fuck pulled him into his bed? Why is his head splitting open?   
  
He stumbles downstairs, to breakfast, and Caleb doesn't even look up from his eggs.   
  
Weird. 

  
…

  
  
It becomes a habit, one he thinks he should maybe stop, of Caleb, whispering about secret magic, secret powerful, helpful magic that he needs, and Fjord inevitably caves and says yes.   
  
The mornings after he doesn't feel woozy or lightheaded, so he's only assuming Caleb is true to his word, he's not bleeding him dry.   
  
There are no scars on his palms.   
  
Caleb shows him a vial of it when they're alone and traveling through some caves up north.   
  
“Is that- is that me?”   
  
“Funny way to put it.” He smiles. “Yes, it is you, Fjord.”   
  
“Oh. Why do you just? Have that?”   
  
“Just in case.”   
  
“In case of what-”   
  
There's a loud hiss further down the cave, and Caleb presses a finger to his lips.   
  
“Just in case.” He whispers.  
  
When they get into a fight with giant spiders, ( _GIANT SPIDERS_ ), and it looks like things are getting bad, Fjord catches the glint of the vial seconds before Caleb throws it in front of them and a massive plume of blue fire erupts through it, filling the entire chamber.   
  
It feels cold on his skin, ticklish.   
  
The spiders burn though. The smell is nauseating, and Fjord is pretty sure he's never smelled anything worse. It's horrific- the noises they make- the noises their bodies make when they're dead and boiling.   
  
Caleb is catatonic like always, but they're safe.   
  
They're safe because his blood turned into blue fire- they're safe because of Caleb.   
  
Fjord leads him out of the caves, back to their tiny camp and starts a fire to keep Caleb warm.   
  
He wakes up slowly when the sun is already dipping below the horizon, with a smile spreading on his face.   
  
“Hey- How are you feeling?”   
  
“Fjord that was-”   
  
“I know, I know, but are you-”   
  
“That was fantastic!” Caleb claps his hands together, beaming up at him and Fjord's head goes a little fuzzy, a little stupid again. “You saw it, ja? I'll need more to make it again, but-”   
  
“Now hold- hold on, Caleb. What was-”   
  
“You promised, Fjord.” He says.   
  
Deep, cold, salt, flooding his lungs. A room so filled with their blood the water was cloudy with it. Jester and Yasha's eyes growing wide with every drag of the knife.   
  
“I did.”   
  
And he's never going to forget it. 

  
…

  
“When is it going to stop?” He asks over dinner one night.   
  
“When I accomplish my goal.” Caleb doesn't look up from his stew. He's very particular about how he eats, either full attention on the meal or nothing at all. Fjord isn't sure when he noticed.    
  
“I want something back.”   
  
“I gave you something back.” He says, and Fjord can't tell if he means the U'ka'toa thing or the countless times he's saved Fjord's life afterward.   
  
“Tell me what your goal is.”   
  
“No.”   
  
And no matter what else Fjord asks about for the rest of the night, Caleb doesn't say a word to him. 

  
...

  
  
Fjord watches in something like mute shock when he uncorks another veil and pours it over Beau's leg where a bolt went clean through muscle and watched in something that is absolute mute shock when her skin knits back closed together.   
  
“I want to be awake.” He says when Caleb invites him out of their tents at night and into the woods.   
  
“You don't need to be.”   
  
“I want to be- I need to- I need to see what you do with it.”   
  
“Ah- I only put you out for your benefit. You don't take pain as well as you think you do.” But Caleb shrugs and pulls his knife out, no sigil this time. ( _Was there one last time?_ ) “Ready?”   
  
Fjord shrugs, in an effort to be cool or nonchalant, he doesn't know.   
  
The knife drags his skin open, and Caleb puts a bowl under his palm. Fjord has no idea where he got it from.   
  
Then he sits down on the dirt floor and opens one of his books and starts reading.   
  
“That's it? That didn't hurt that bad.”   
  
“Give it a minute.” And then he starts chanting in- in something guttural- Deep maybe? Or Primal?   
  
And then his arm starts burning like he shoved it in a hornet's nest.   
  
He doesn't know how he keeps his screams quiet, but at the end of whatever ritual it was, Caleb moves the blood into another neat glass vial and Fjord is a sobbing shaking mess on the floor.   
  
“What the fuck-” He hisses when Caleb haunches down in the dirt and smooths the hair out of his sweating forehead. “Was that?”   
  
“Does it matter?”   
  
“Yeah?! If it hurts like that it does!”   
  
“Another bottle of fire,” Caleb says, shushing him like a mother would. Like Fjord presumes a mother would. It would help a lot of Caleb's fingers didn't smell of sharp iron. “Do you understand? Why I put you under?”   
  
“How don't I wake up from that?”   
  
“I put you very deep under.” He says, like its no big deal. “Want to spend the night in my tent? I'll pat you till the pain goes away.”   
  
“Fuck you.” He hisses. “Condescending-”   
  
“Ah- so it's fine when you do it to Nott? But when I do it to you, I'm being mean?” He doesn't know why that sends another wave of sobs through his body and Caleb shushes him again. “You're emotional. It takes a lot.”   
  
“I'm not doing that again.” Fjord hisses and Caleb smiles and shrugs.   
  
A week later, his blood saves their lives, and while Beau and Jester and Nott coo over how impressive Caleb's magic is, Caleb doesn't take his eyes off of Fjord. 

  
…

  
  
Caleb drags the knife against Fjord's skin, and Fjord drips into the bowl again.   
  
“Why does it have to be mine?”   
  
“Because you promised.” And then after a long moment. “And because you're god-touched.”   
  
“So if it wasn't me-” He thinks about Jester, about Yasha, about Caduceus in his spot and he feels sick.   
  
“It would always be you.”   
  
If it wasn't for the distinct sensation of fire ants devouring his arm moments later, Fjord thinks he might have appreciated it. 

  
...

  
Fjord barely picks himself up, they all do, while Caleb Widogast stands over the bloodied corpse of Trent Ikathon and wears a feral smile.   
  
“And your goal?” Fjord asks while they bathe together.   
  
“Halfway done.” He smiles.   
  
“Do you need to like- I don't know. Talk about the whole- the whole fire thing with anyone?”   
  
“Don't you think I take enough from you, Fjord?”   
  
Yes.   
  
Yes beyond a shadow of a doubt _yes_.   
  
“You can talk to me about it.” He says. “It's better than the-”   
  
“You don't seem to like that very much, do you?”   
  
“Not particularly no.”   
  
Caleb smiles again.   
  
Fjord's still weak for it, even after all of this time.   
  
“Shame.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments are always encouraged and very very very appreciated
> 
> talk[ to me here](http://iamalivenow.tumblr.com/)


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